As she went on describing the advantages of gamboling together in public, he slid behind a chair to hide the effect her words had provoked. He was stuck on the “touching me and holding me” part. Because he wanted to touch and hold her.
Years ago, Samuel, his practiced seducer of a brother, had told him that women responded very well to the usual kisses in the usual spots, but also to ones placed on strategic points all over the body. His brother had even claimed that some women could find their release merely from such caresses.
Though Edwin was skeptical about that last, he’d always wanted to try rousing a woman the way Samuel described. And the idea of doing it with Clarissa now filled his head. He imagined kissing Clarissa’s inner arm, dragging his tongue along the soft skin of her throat, brushing his hand over the tiny dip in her—
“Edwin?” she prodded. “Do you agree?”
“Er . . . yes, of course.” God only knew what he was agreeing to. That’s what he got for woolgathering—that, and an arousal growing more prominent by the moment.
What the devil? This hadn’t happened to him since he was a green lad lusting after tavern wenches. “But you’ll have to help me with the flirting. It’s not my strong suit.”
“Don’t worry. Just follow my lead, and listen to your instincts. I’m sure you have them. You just ignore them.”
Or suppress them whenever it came to her, which he must continue to do. Because his instincts said to pull her close and kiss her the way Durand should have—like a lover, not a bully. His instincts said she might welcome such a kiss.
His instincts were doubtless quite wrong.
As if she could read his mind, she sharpened her gaze on him. “Are you sure you want to do this? It hardly seems fair to you.” She approached him slowly. “I mean, how long are we talking about continuing this sham?”
He fought to clear his head of erotic images. “However long it takes for Durand to get the message.”
“But that might be ages. What if you have to spend the entire Season pretending to court me for Count Durand’s benefit? How does that help you find a wife?”
“You let me worry about that.”
“You’re not getting any younger, you know.”
God, what did she think—he was doddering on the edge of the grave? “Thanks for reminding me.”
“Seriously, Edwin—”
“I doubt our sham will go on too long. Consider it this way: If you help me with my flirting and courting and such nonsense, then by the time we’re finally rid of that fool, I’ll be so far advanced in my strategies to secure a wife that it will take me no effort at all.”
She gazed heavenward. “Oh, Lord. I’m really going to have my work cut out for me, aren’t I?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Coming up next to him, she slid her hand into the crook of his arm. “Well, first of all, stop referring to flirting and courting as ‘nonsense’ in front of any woman you’re actually interested in. And second, you have got to stop thinking in terms of strategies and ‘securing a wife.’ The important thing to remember is . . .”
His mind wandered again as she led him from the room, instructing him the whole way. But this time his thoughts weren’t on undressing her. This time all he could think was that he’d gained himself yet another fiancée who was never going to marry him.
Bad enough that Jane had thrown him over. Though they’d never been more than friends and the only thing Jane had hurt was his pride, watching her fall for another man’s claptrap about “true love” had still stung. It had been unexpected, too, since she was a sensible woman otherwise.
But Clarissa wasn’t Jane. She took nothing—other than Durand’s obsession, apparently—very seriously. And even if she wanted to marry Edwin, he would never consider marrying her. If he ever got close to the bright flame that was Lady Clarissa Lindsey, she would singe him but good. He’d rather be alone than to wed her and find that her infatuation was temporary.
He refused to have his heart pummeled when she lost interest in her husband and moved on to her next conquest. He refused to wake up one day, like his mother, to discover that his marriage was all a lie. That his spouse had never been in his corner. That Clarissa’s love or infatuation or whatever one called it could not withstand the rough times of a marriage.
Edwin had watched his mother die with his father’s name on her lips and her heart breaking, and all because Father had been off at a private opium club in London, indulging in his favorite vice to erase his memories of the past. Even “love” had not prevented his father from sinking into that abyss.
Before Edwin would risk having that happen to him, he would settle for a perfectly conventional, boring union with some responsible chit who was happy to live the usual life of a well-bred lady—bearing him children and managing his household and not making him think or feel.
Because quiet comfort with any ordinary female was surely preferable to a possibility of untold pain with a certain frivolous beauty.
Five